Moose in Bello
by Bees-h-mcc
Summary: Sam makes the mistake of pissing off the King of Hell - one he pays the price for after he gets turned into a moose.


Dean and Sam had found a cheap motel off the highway to crash in for the night. They had just wrapped up a nasty ghost hunt outside of Denver. Afterward Crowley had turned up with his usual _quid pro quo_ nonsense, offering who the hell cares for who the fuck knows and needless to say the experience didn't end well. Insults were flung, death threats were made – the usual routine – but this time, Sam said something that seemed to hit Crowley with particular venom.

"You're alone in this, Crowley. We won't help you, and if you can't provide, your demons will start to turn on you. Though I bet they already have."

"That's enough from you, Moose." Crowley examined his fingernail with false interst.

"Oh, no, you want to know what I think?" Sam smirked.

"Not particularly, no."

"You're losing, and you're scared. No one will think twice of you ever again and that terrifies you."

"Come on, Sam, let's leave this crap-hole." Dean turned, tugging the sleeve of Sam's jacket. Sam followed the motion, but paused and turned once more to the King of Hell.

"You're pathetic."

The brothers entered the motel room, a dank must greeting their nostrils. They both hated these places – always dirty with questionable stains and pest problems. "Dude, a massive roach just crawled under my bed. Like, 6 inches at least!" Dean exclaimed as Sam shuddered – But the boys were short on cash, and it was a place to stay for the night. They unpacked their things, then flopped heavily upon their respective beds, heaving out great sighs.

"That was one messed up son of a bitch," Dean said, referring to the spirit in Denver. "Ghost murderer, sure; ghost doctor, alright, I'll buy it – but ghost mad scientist? We reached a whole new level of weird with that one, brother."

"Ugh, and those poor people he experimented on…"

"What a way to die," Dean said, snapping of the cap of a beer bottle. He tossed one to Sam, and the two sat in silence, sipping and staring in to space. "That wasn't a smart thing to do, you know."

"I know, Dean, but it's not like I dropped the gun on purpose!"

"I meant with Crowley." Sam shifted uncomfortably on the edge of the mattress, taking another quick sip. "Dude can do a lot worse things that any torture lovin' ghost."

"I know. I… I wasn't thinking, okay?"

"Well start thinking, man, 'cause I guarantee you a shit storm's coming our way."

They both fell asleep quickly, exhaustion and alcohol taking its toll. The night was quiet, save for the rush of cars on the interstate and the constant thrum of the air conditioner, and altogether uneventful. Morning came in a sliver of light peering between the heavy curtain fabrics. Sam's eyes opened slowly, taking in the still dark room. The sun alighted upon Dean, sprawled face down, sheets untucked and entangled in his legs, drooling. Sam gave a laugh, and it rumbled deep in his chest, sounding odd. Ignoring it, Sam turned his head to check the time. '_Must be at least past 6:00_.' In doing so, his head bumped the wall. Or, something… attached to his head bumped the wall?

_'The hell?'_ He tried to reach up to feel his head, but couldn't seem to get his arm to move that way. It was situated underneath him, his body lying on top, and try as he might, he could not raise his arm upward to his head. Sam rolled to his back, knocking the lamp off the bedside table with whatever was still on his head. Dean miraculously stayed asleep. Sam stretched his arms upward, legs too, and just froze there, limbs skyward.

He didn't really know what to do at that point, or how to react to what he was seeing. What he saw were four brown, knobby, furry, hooved legs. Like a deer. Or… a moose. He tried moving them around, and sure enough they complied. This only served to send a panicked rush of adrenaline shooting though Sam's body as he rolled over off of the bed to the floor. Shaking a bit, he attempted to stand up, finding the use of four legs incredibly strange. He stumbled, knocking over furniture to the bathroom, where, in the mirror, the reflection of a large chestnut-brown moose stared back at him.

Sam began yelling, the sound emerging from his mouth as a loud honking and crying. He fell backward into the side of the small desk, knocking the television remote on to the floor. Stepping on it, the set sprung alive to the morning news. In all the commotion, Dean had finally woken up to what he would later describe as, "Only the second weirdest awakening I've ever had in my life."

He sat up, eyes wide, taking in the moment – a wrecked room, no Sam, and a massive panicked moose. "What the fuck…" Hearing Dean's voice, Sam stood to face him, rushing over to the bed in an attempt to communicate his predicament.

_'Dean, you gotta help me! It's me! It's Sam, I -'_ But only honks and cries filled Dean's ears. Dean scurried backward on the bed to get away from the close proximity of the towering animal. It only advanced further, stepping up on to the mattress and causing the bedframe to snap, sending both parties a jolting two feet to the floor. Dean clambered away from the moose, who was busy disentangling it's antlers from the bedclothes, and rushed to the other side of the room. He turned off the TV and faced the creature, now regaining its towering stance, wielding a shotgun.

_'Dean, wait!'_ Sam tried in vain, eyes wide, all four knees shaking. A thick silence settled into the motel room. Dean looked at the large frightened eyes and lowered the gun with a heavy sigh.

"Nah, I won't shoot ya." Dean threw the gun back into his duffel bag and collapsed in the nearest chair, rubbing his face with both hands. "Typical Sam to go on a goddamn jog and leave the door wide open. Heck, anyone could just waltz right in here. And now, I got a friggin' _moose_ in my room!" The animal advanced once more toward Dean, making frantic noises. "Alright, Bullwinkle, time for you to go!"

Dean began to push the moose toward the door with the greatest of difficulty. There was a terrible amount of stumbling, and, when the door was finally wrenched open, Sam's antlers wouldn't fit through. In Dean's frustration, Sam managed to slip away to one corner of the room. He needed to find some way of communicating to Dean who he was. A pen rested on the nearby table next to his laptop. Sam hatched an idea. Grabbing the pen between his teeth, Sam began to punch out a short message on the computer.

"Hey, what the hell are you…" Dean rushed over to the moose, then, glancing down, was astounded by what was on the laptop's screen:

"im saam"

Dean did a series of double and triple takes before finally uttering, "S- Sam? Sammy is that… you?" The moose nodded, filled with relief. Dean put a hand to his forehead. "Son of a bitch."

"This is all Crowley's fault! I'm telling you, man, you shouldn't have messed with him like that. You just don't piss off a guy – or uh, demon – like him; you don't poke the bear, Sam!" Dean was pacing nervously. Sam made a huffing sound, giving his brother a glare. Dean took notice, grabbing a beer, and sat down on the edge of his bed. He gave a nervous laugh. "I mean… You're a _moose,_ man! Come on!" Dean sat for a minute, thinking of what they could possibly do next. "I'm gonna call Bobby." Sam nodded in agreement.

The phone rang and was answered with a gruff, "Yeah?" Dean explained the situation to Bobby and was met with riotous laughter. "This isn't funny, Bobby, okay!? My brother's been turned into friggin' Bambi."

_'Bambi was a deer, Dean.'_ Sam huffed, immensely frustrated he couldn't correct his brother.

"Well, come on, Bobby, there's gotta be something we can do! Wh- Alright… Yeah, we'll get right on it. Thanks, Bobb – stop laughing!" Dean hung up forcefully and threw the phone across the room where it landed on Sam's bed. Sam looked at Dean, curious as to what information Bobby had to offer. Dean met Sam's gaze and reached around to scratch the back of his head. "Bobby says until we can find out exactly what kind of hoo-doo Crowley used to do this, he can't help us." They both heaved a great sigh. Then, Sam's stomach began to rumble loudly. "You're hungry?" Sam nodded. "Great, um… I'll go pick up something to eat, and then we'll get right on figuring out how to turn you back to normal, alright? You just – stay here."

Dean set out walking to the neighboring burger joint, leaving Sam alone in the wrecked motel room. It was relatively quiet as Sam sat curled up on the broken bed, drinking in the ridiculousness of his situation. That is, until housekeeping arrived. Sam heard the knock and voice of a Hispanic woman and immediately began to panic. He stood up quickly, frantically, searching desperately for somewhere to hide. But he was too big and the room was too small. The small woman entered the room with a basket of cleaning supplies, and stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of the large moose. She let out a scream, dropping the supplies, while Sam uselessly tried to calm her. _'No, it's okay! I'm not gonna hurt you!'_ But all that came out were forceful grunts, frightening the woman even further. She ran from the room, hands flailing in the air.

Sam sat back down on the bed with a huff, disgruntled by the unfortunate encounter. Dean was taking too long. He figured he could look through their dad's journal for any hints about what sort of magic did this to him. The journal however was in the Impala. The housekeeper had left the door open, so Sam figured he may as well give the whole idea a shot. Exiting the room proved to pretty tricky considering his size and the span of his antlers, but eventually Sam made it outside. The Chevy was parked far at the other end of the lot, away from all the other vehicles so as not to get damaged by "new-wave recyclo douchebags" as Dean would say.

Sam made his way over to the car, only to realize that he had no way of getting the doors open. Hooves meant no hands, and even if he was somehow able to hook and antler on the doorhandle, the car was locked. Cursing his own stupidity, Sam looked around. Traffic on the highway sped past the motel and empty parking lot, the unmown grass leading to the road swaying. Sam's stomached growled again, even louder than before. _'What's taking Dean so long?'_ Sam was incredibly hungry, and his moose instincts were starting to kick in. Suddenly that grass looked like it would taste pretty good.

Dean returned with burgers to find his moose brother eating grass next to his car while three animal control workers tried ineffectually to get him to stop. Two were pulling on a snare pole they had looped around Sam's antlers, the third pushing on the opposite side. A small crowd was beginning to gather. The man pushing stopped, saying to the others, "Guys, he ain't budging. We'll just have t' wait 'til Ernie gets here with the tranquilizer."

"Hey. Hey! What do you guys think you're doing, huh?" Dean said, shouldering his way through the onlookers to the midst of the commotion.

"Well, mister, we're tryin' t' wrangle this here moose. Housekeeper found him tearing up some poor sod's room; tried t' attack her. He's a big'un! Usually don't get many down here, 'specially this time o' season."

"I highly doubt this moose tried to attack anyone," Dean said.

"Why, you know him?" The worker joked, gaining a laugh from the other two.

"Uh, yeah, actually I do. He's um… my pet."

"You got a pet moose?"

"… Yeah."

"Well shoot, mister, I don't think they allow any pets at this motel."

"Yeah, we were just leaving."

"I'm sorry, sir, I can't let you take him now. We gotta finish the job, an' you might be able t' pick him up later. That is, if you can show the right licensing and paperwork proving you own the animal."

"Aw, come on. I'm sure we can come to some sort of an agreement here." Dean put on the most charismatic smile he could manage.

"Those burgers you got smell pretty nice."

"Dammit. Sam! We got no room, no idea what crap Crowley used to do this to you… and I _still _haven't eaten!" It was almost midnight. Sam and Dean had to leave the motel quickly after bargaining with the animal control workers. Somehow the local news team had caught wind of the story and were high-tailing it to the scene. After Dean had packed everything in to the Impala, it became clear the car would not be a suitable means of transportation this time. Sam was much too big to even fit his head inside. They set out walking, man and moose, getting as far out of town as they could until they came to an empty warehouse.

Now the two sat inside, unsure of what to do next. Dean had checked and double-checked the journal for anything that could help them, but found nothing they didn't already know. They were both about to call it quits for the night and try to get some sleep when a smooth voice sounded behind them.

"Hello, boys."

"Crowley, you son of a bitch!" Dean cried as the brothers rose to their feet. "You change Sam back right now, or I swear to god I will slit your -"

"Ah-ah, Dean, it's that type of behavior that landed your brother in his current predicament." Crowley grinned as the Winchesters glared. "Besides, I think this new shape fits him very well. What do you think, Moose?" Sam grunted, lowering his antlers toward the demon. "Ooh, a little _moose in bello_, eh?" Crowley chuckled.

"Alright, enough jokes! What did you use to do this, huh? Voo-doo? A spell, what?"

"I have connections with a certain witch. She does a little magic for me, I do a little magic for her." Crowley threw a wink in Sam's direction.

"Witchcraft?"

"Yes, squirrel. Anyway, it's not about how I did it. It's about Sam learning a lesson in the most entertaining way possible. Well, entertaining for me at least."

"Cut the crap, Crowley, what do you want us to do?"

"I want you to begin to show me some respect! I want you to do what I ask, when I ask you. I want you to come when I call. I want you two Hardy Boys to learn how to take an order."

"So basically what you're saying is you want me and Sam to be your personal bitches?"

"Basically, yeah."

"You must be out of your demon skull if you think we're gonna agree to that."

"Fine. Have it your own way. Sam will remain in his intended state, while I find some other poor saps to do my bidding. It's a win-win for me." Crowley turned and began to walk away from the brothers when Dean called out.

"Wait! Wait – We'll do it…"

"Really -"

"Yes!"

"Well then. That settles that."

"Now change Sam back."

"Are you quite sure? I think the fur really matches his eyes."  
"Do it!"

"Alright! But you remember Dean – Sam – I'm not one who takes to being lied to or cheated. If you find a way to wriggle out of this, a little animal transformation will be the least of your worries." With a snap, Crowley had vanished.

Dean turned to Sam, now restored to his normal human self. "Sammy! Hey man, are you aright? How do you feel?"

Sam ran a hand through his long hair, then placed it on his stomach with an uncomfortable expression on his face. "Like I ate a bunch of weeds…"

Dean chuckled and clapped his brother on the shoulder. "Well, at least you're a person again."

"Yeah, but I feel running small errands isn't what Crowley had in mind for us. We're in trouble Dean."

"Aren't we always?" Dean began picking up their things. "Come, on. I left the car back at the motel, and I ain't letting any hippy with a Prius scratch up my baby. Plus I'm friggin' starving, man!"


End file.
